New Delhi — U.S.-based artificial intelligence company Anthropic said it identified and disrupted an Iran-linked account that used its Claude AI model to collect and analyze publicly available information on U.S. naval assets and develop targeting recommendations.
Anthropic said the operators used Claude to compile “targeting handbooks” and identify and track naval positions using open-source information.
According to the company, the account used a Python pipeline developed with Claude’s assistance to track naval positions from publicly available data.
The material included names of U.S. personnel gathered from captions on public military photographs, ship and aircraft transponder identifiers, scripts for querying commercial satellite imagery and lists of public websites that exposed U.S. naval movements.
Anthropic said the account also used Claude to research possible vulnerabilities in shipboard systems, including maritime satellite terminals, Cisco communications equipment and industrial control products.
The company said Claude was used to catalog known CVEs in maritime VSAT terminals.
Anthropic said it remains unclear whether intelligence generated with Claude was used in any specific Iranian military operation.
The disclosure came after Iranian forces recently targeted U.S. naval assets, including guided-missile destroyers and facilities in the Gulf region. Washington said the incidents caused damage but no U.S. casualties.
Iran also targeted Naval Support Activity Bahrain, the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. U.S. officials said warships avoided the attacks without casualties, though the strikes damaged the Bahrain facility.
Anthropic’s report also said an account linked to the Islamic Culture and Communications Organization uploaded detailed organizational plans for former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral and succession to Claude.
Khamenei was buried in Mashhad on July 9, 2026, following a multi-day state funeral procession after his death in a U.S.-Israeli strike on February 28, 2026. (Source: IANS)
